The way to moral and spiritual health is to direct my criticisms upon myself. I must stand in the dock, and hear the grave indictment of my own soul. Unless I pa.s.s through the second chapter of Romans I can never enter the fifth and sixth, and still less the glorious forgiveness of the eighth. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." I pa.s.s into that warm, cheery light through the cold road of acknowledged guilt and sin.

"If we confess our sins He is just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

SEPTEMBER The Eleventh

_A FATAL DIVORCE_

"_They feared the Lord, and served their own G.o.ds._"

--2 KINGS xvii. 24-34.

And that is an old-world record, but it is quite a modern experience. The kinsmen of these ancient people are found in our own time. Men still fear one G.o.d and serve another.

But something is vitally wrong when men can divorce their fear from their obedience. And the beginning of the wrong is in the fear itself. "Fear,"

as used in this pa.s.sage, is a counterfeit coin, which does not ring true to the truth. It means only the payment of outward respect, a formal recognition, a pa.s.sing nod which we give on the way to something better.

It is a mere skin courtesy behind which there is no beating heart; a hollow convention in which there is no deep and sacred awe.

But the real "fear of G.o.d" is a spiritual mood in which virtue thrives, an atmosphere in which holy living is quite inevitable. "The fear of the Lord is _clean_." It is not lip-worship, but heart-homage, a reverence in which the soul is always found upon its knees. And so "the fear of the Lord is to hate evil"; it is an indignant repulsion from all that is hateful to G.o.d. It is the sharing of the Spirit of the Lord. There cannot be any true fear where the soul does not worship "in spirit and in truth."

SEPTEMBER The Twelfth

_THE GARMENTS OF THE SOUL_

JOEL ii. 12-19.

I am so apt to think that the rending of an outer garment is a token of true penitence and amendment of life. But it is the inner garments I must deal with, the raiments and habits of the soul. Some of these robes--such as vanity and pride--are as gay and showy as a peac.o.c.k; others are dirty and leprous, and we should not dare to bring them to the door, and display them in the light. But all need severe treatment; they must be torn, fibre from fibre, and reduced to rags.

But "rending" must be accompanied by "turning." "_Turn unto the Lord your G.o.d._" For the Lord our G.o.d is gracious, and His love will not only provide a new wardrobe, but a swift furnace in which to burn the remnants of the old. Yes, His "great kindness" will burn away the filth of my alienation, and will "bring forth the best robe" and put it on me. The good Lord will give me new habits. He will "cover me with the robe of righteousness, and the garment of salvation."

SEPTEMBER The Thirteenth

_THE CLEAN HEART_

PSALM li.

What will the Lord do with my sin, if in true humility I come into His Presence? Let me hear the music of the evangel.

He will "_blot out my transgression_." He will so erase it that even His own holy eyes can see no stain or shame. He will blot it out, as I have seen a gloomy cloudlet blotted out, and there has been nothing left but radiant sky.

And He will "_wash me throughly from mine iniquity_." Yes, and that not like the washing of the hands, but like the washing of clothes, not like the washing of a surface, but the removal of uncleanness from a fabric, the ousting of every germ lurking in the innermost cells of the stuff.

When the Lord washes a soul it is "throughly" done, and every strand is white in holiness.

So will He give me "_a clean heart_"; so will He "_renew a right spirit within me_." The very atmosphere of my life shall be as the air after deluges of cleansing rain. It shall be sweet, and clean, and clear! I shall walk in a new inspiration, and I shall "behold the land that is very far off."

SEPTEMBER The Fourteenth

_THE SENSE OF WANT_

"_This man went down to his house justified rather than the other._"

--LUKE xviii. 9-14.

The Master sets the Pharisee and publican in contrast, and His judgment goes against the man who has made some progress in moral attainments, and favours the man who has no victories to show, but only a hunger for victory. The dissatisfied sinner is preferred to the self-satisfied saint.

The Pharisee had gained an inch, but had lost his sense of the continent.

The publican had not pegged out an inch of moral claim, but he had an overwhelming sense of the untrodden universe.

So this, I think, is the teaching for me. We are justified by the penitent sense of want and not by the boastful sense of possession. Our sense of lack is the measure of our hope, and our measure of hope determines the poverty or fulness of our communion with the Lord. The Pharisee had no "beyond," no realm of admiration, no hope! Aspiration was dead, and therefore inspiration had ceased. Our possibilities nestle in our cravings.

SEPTEMBER The Fifteenth

_RESTORING A RUINED LIFE_

PSALM ciii. 1-18.

Could there be a sweeter chime than the opening music of this psalm?

"_Who forgiveth all thine iniquities._" He receives me back home again, interrupts the broken story of my sin, and drowns my sobbings in His rejoicings.

"_Who healeth all thy diseases._" He takes in hand the foul complaints which I acquired in "the far country," and with His powerful medicines, and His wonderful "bread of life," He drives the foul things from my soul.

"_Who redeemeth thy life from destruction._" Yes, with His own blood He buys me back from a midnight servitude, strikes every chain and shackle from my limbs, and makes me dance in "the glorious liberty of the children of G.o.d."

"_Who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercy._" He encircles me with the invulnerable army of His own love. Henceforth if the devil would get at me he must deal with G.o.d. "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people."

"_Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things._" He sets before me a glorious table, and enlivens my spirits with glorious fellowship. That so I can be no other than "satisfied," and my heart is at rest in the Lord.

"Thou, O Christ, art all I want!"

SEPTEMBER The Sixteenth